Alienation!

I continue to hide from the world, my mind is in conflict! I am doing all in my power to avoid stress.
Compared to many I am living a charmed life free of responsibility. I have made it this way and I need it to be this way. That is 5 'I's already. The ego is driving this word processor and this blog. One is trying to neutralise the feelings of ennui and alienation. This blog is about me and Wales and my relationship with it.

"Now there's a funny thing! Here Mrs, now there's a funny thing." chwedl Max Miller.



 We are on the eve of a Bi-Election in Anglesey and the National Eisteddfod in 'Dinbych'. I  won't be going near either but will be voyeuring without television if that is possible from afar. This morning I attempted a monologue from a Bangor La cursing Cardiff and South Wales. It's coming along nicely. Having been born in the South and raised in the North and living again in the South I can do a lot of the accents and as a wannabe thespian, this could come in quite handy if I wasn't so socially anxious. I am an avoider of people and events. I don't wish to get observed, harmed or rejected so I do not put myself in harm's way. 

Careerists?

                                                                                  

Tal

Ap

Rottweiler

I need to do a bit of judging at the moment and I'm sure what I have to say will have no impact whatsoever on the result of the Bi-election but I am concerned that this is not about Politics on the Isle of Anglesey but about the careers of two careerists. Tal Michael for Labour and Rhun ap Iorwerth for Plaid Cymru. Tal failed to get the Police Commissioner's role for North Wales so thought he would throw his hat in the ring for the Assembly Bi -election for Sir Fon. Rhun ap Iorwerth until very recently was on TV screens presenting everything the BBC and S4C could offer him. Obviously as an employee of the Corporation he could have no political affiliation but it was obvious that his heart was home on the island and when the networking alerted him to the fact that he could stand for Plaid despite not being a member with a track record of canvassing, he jumped. I saw another careerist walking down the street in Cardiff the other day, Rod 'Rottweiler' Richards who also used to work for the BBC who then became a 'nasty bit of goods' with the Tories, he's now joined UKIP and started criticising the BBC despite receiving regular pundit slots on political programmes.   

I dislike Careerists because I have no career of my own! I am wary and weary of ambition. Why should these people avoid the fate of being 'one bar pensioners' just because they are oily extraverts who can talk a good game o shite.

As to the Eisteddfod, I have made my feelings known on the over priced, incestuous, competitive get together held every year in one part of North or South Wales in the first week of August. It is being hosted by the Town where I had my first job. The first job was on one of the Tories Youth Opportunities Programmes Y.O.P at the height of another recession in 1983. £25.00 a week and now thirty years on, I am not even on three times that amount. The only reason I started this job was because I had failed my O levels at school and here I am, still be-moaning the fact. Back then I wanted to be a Journalist, now I wanted to be a Psychologist, in an attempt to understand my fellow 'beens'. The Hour Glass of Time however is running out and I do not have the drive or ambition or the finance for training so I will wallow a little while longer in my limbo and alienation, watching, observing and judging!    

Sick Society?

For Me! Mental Health is Political. "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" said Krishnamurti. I believe that Industrialised society is sick. I believe that Inner City Urban existence is toxic. I'm not sure how long 4 Winds has been in Grangetown http://www.cavamh.org.uk/directories/mental-health-directory/3rd-sector/4winds-user-led-association but I have been here for 25 years with a 4 year sojourn in London. It was whilst in London and then on an extended holiday in Amsterdam that I came face to face with my own Mental Health. This time there was nowhere to hide! I had to look through a glass darkly! When we are unwell, there is a tendency to self hate and self loathing but I'm wondering whether we should reserve that loathing and contempt for a society that doesn't encourage Mental Well-Being! It encourages Competition and in my opinion, competition is injurious to the Soul because that is what we are talking about here, a soul affliction. As I walked to my Voluntary work the other day I crossed an Athletics Track that had been marked into the grass for a Sports Day on Pontcanna Fields.

 8 Lanes wide and as I walked across it I stopped, I looked  right to the starting line and then left to the finishing line. I remembered the shrill childrens' cries on Sportsdays calling out the name of the most popular, athletic child. For every winner, there is a loser! What happens to the losers in life? They end up as Mental Health Service Users because they are fed up of competing! They have run out of juice. They have run out of coping strategies. Picking Teams? Do you remember that tradition? Last one in the line up to be picked? Oh we'll have Alf! We'll have Jane! Oh No!

At such a young age! We are emotionally branded as not good enough, not by adults but by our own peer group. So let's be fair! From the very beginning. the odds are stacked against us! Maybe we shouldn't really feel so bad about opting out of a profoundly sick society with its road rage and domestic abuse, its commercialism and its shallowness. Maybe we should relish our cup of tea with friends, of breaking bread and the sense of community and refuge offered by Drop-In Centres!

Wilmoth Houdini: Moan, People, Moan.